Competitive Intelligence: Organizational Value and High Impact Activities

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"Competitive Intelligence: Organizational Value and High Impact Activities"

STUDY OVERVIEW
In today’s volatile business environment, unforeseen market shifts can blindside an unwary company and nullify product forecasts, sales strategies and development plans. World-class companies improve their chances for success by using competitive intelligence (see definition at end of abstract) to help them anticipate and respond strategically to external change.

The competitive intelligence organization plays a vital role within top companies by providing senior management and key decision makers with actionable insights they need to reduce risk, identify emerging business opportunities and improve investment decisions. It is therefore critical that CI groups conduct the right activities with the right level of resources to ensure their companies can maintain a long-term competitive edge.

This cross-industry research provides benchmarks and insights that managers and executives can use to build and sustain high-performing, well-recognized CI organizations. The study discusses how top companies achieve long-term competitive intelligence success by creating and communicating CI value and focusing on high-impact CI activities.

KEY TOPICS
· Methods for Creating CI Value
· Identifying and Supporting Major Decision Makers
· Aligning CI with Corporate Business Objectives
· Providing Strategic Services
· Communicating CI Value within the Company
· High Impact CI Activities
· Matrix on Best Practices for Communicating, Sustaining Value and CI Management

KEY METRICS
Many of the data graphics in this presentation provide averages for the full benchmark class as well as separate averages for pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical industry segments. This segmentation strategy was adopted due to the high volume—46 percent—of participation from the pharma industry.

· Age of Dedicated CI Organizations
· Five Most Important CI Activities
· Percent of Companies With Various CI Responsibilities
· Number of Company Products Supported by CI
· Number of Competitor Products Tracked
· Number of Competitors Tracked

SAMPLE KEY FINDINGS
· Competitive intelligence is an emerging function still finding its way into the corporate mainstream. At the companies in this study, more than half the CI organizations were established in the last five years, and only a handful of the programs existed more than 10 years ago.
· Winning CI organizations tie their goals to corporate business objectives to assure that their deliverables will inform executives on key issues and, ultimately, drive profitability. Some strategies for achieving alignment include hiring CI staff with deep vertical knowledge of the company, becoming involved in cross-functional activities and teams, and holding discussions with top executives to hear their concerns.

STUDY METHODOLOGY
The research was conducted in two phases that involved 54 companies across 15 different industries. Each phase involved a survey instrument as well as separate in-depth interviews with selected CI program executives. Surveys were focused on collecting quantitative data, while interviews harvested qualitative data and management insights.

KEY DEFINITIONS
“CI” (Competitive Intelligence) – For purposes of this study, the term “Competitive Intelligence” (or “CI”) is defined as actionable knowledge and insights about competitors and the competitive environment. CI process includes gathering, analyzing and disseminating actionable information and insights. Activities include SWOT analyses, competitor product profiling, industry audits, scenario development, value chain analysis, etc. Functions of corporate librarians are excluded.

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